


Breathe

by Illegible_Scribble



Series: 31 Days of Frodo/Sam, 2018 [8]
Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Quest, Smoochtober 2018, a little hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 11:51:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16241048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Illegible_Scribble/pseuds/Illegible_Scribble
Summary: The night before the last gasp of Frodo and Sam's quest to Mount Doom, as Sam holds Frodo near to comfort him, he whispers a profession - and unexpectedly, Frodo recalls it later.





	Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> The text in italics is Tolkien's original script from The Return of the King.  
> Based on [this prompt](https://www.pillowfort.io/posts/132744) for Smoochtober 2018, #8: Kiss on the Nape.

_At last he groped for Frodo's hand. It was cold and trembling. His master was shivering._

_'I didn't ought to have left my blanket behind,' muttered Sam; and lying down he tried to comfort Frodo with his arms and body._

Frodo lay on his side, shivering and hugging himself desperately, with one hand clutching his chest, at the Ring. 'Here now,' Sam murmured, smoothing back a ragged matte of dark curls from Frodo's forehead, before lying down behind him, and gently pulling his back against Sam's chest, 'nearly there, Master. We've almost made it.' Frodo did not reply, unless it was to continue shivering.

It was horrifying to Sam to feel how much Frodo had wasted away, holding him near like this. His hips seemed all too big for the rest of him, and beneath each of his ribs a hollow dell could be felt, made only more prominent when he breathed. 'Oh, Frodo dear.' Sam murmured into his hair, feeling that – were it not for his exhaustion, and knowledge that no matter a thing, they were so near the final steps of their journey – he would've wept. This weight was grinding down upon and cracking Frodo to powder, like wheat being turned into flour, and there was nothing Sam could do. Nothing, save hold him and try to act as the blanket he'd gone and left behind like a ninnyhammer.

Frodo had fallen on his right side (lying on his left had become too painful, after Weathertop), leaving the Ring slumped near his right shoulder. Tentatively, Sam placed a hand over Frodo's heart, even the beat of which felt small and strangled. For fear of waking his master, Sam said nothing, though his own heart was full of sorrow.

He held Frodo nearer and tighter, trying to warm him so his shivering would cease, and for his own comfort, hid his face in Frodo's matted hair. He could remember – even if distantly, as though he were looking through a foggy, far-away window to see it – the way sunlight used to catch in Frodo's hair in the summer. All at once a shroud of gold would encircle his head, as each fine hair was transformed from raven-dark to a thread of golden fire. Some days, even Frodo's eyes had shone like that, from within, as if sunlight were filtering through crystal ponds of the truest blue.

Even if no tears were left to fall from his eyes, Sam wept in his heart, for he knew Frodo would never look like that again, nor feel so joyous as to laugh aloud or perhaps even smile. The very end of their journey was one from which Sam now knew there was no return, and he mourned the loss of everything they'd once thought abundant and forever, which existed now only in memory.

He tucked his face down, trying to quell any noises of sorrow from escaping him, and his lips and the tip of his nose touched first the still-scabbed sting Shelob had delivered, and then the wet groove of blood the chain of the Ring was digging itself into. 'Oh,' said Sam in a whisper, 'Frodo.' Trying to contain himself, Sam held Frodo even tighter. 'I'm so awful sorry.'

His words were empty and hollow in his own ears, and Sam knew they encompassed nothing of the true grief in his heart. But there was no more time for tears, or sorrow, or grieving. The morning would come, for the passage of night would not change nor halt it. There was nothing Sam could do to alter their path, or unmake time so there was not a path they need walk at all. The only power in his hands was to continue bearing Frodo up to his – and even then, their shared – appointed Doom.

As a fitful slumber began to creep over him, Sam at the last disagreed with his judgment of having but one thing left to him. It was small, and Frodo would feel, hear, nor remember it not, but nevertheless Sam placed a gentle kiss against the mark of Shelob. 'No matter where our paths might've lead,' whispered Sam, 'no matter the life, I'd have followed you down every one of 'em, every time. I love you, Frodo. Whether or no.' Frodo made a soft noise in his sleep – a sigh, perhaps – free of pain. Soft as a whisper, Sam placed a final kiss on Frodo's nape, believing it their last.

_Then sleep took him, and the dim light of the last day of their quest found them side by side._

 

–

 

'I heard you, you know.' said Frodo, as they sat on one of the balconies in Minas Tirith, looking West to the sunset. 'On the night before-' he slowly touched a hand to the back of his neck, 'I... I remembered. I have remembered. In- in Sammath Naur, I... I could remember your voice, and your touch. I held so tightly to that, and the memories it returned to me of the Shire. I- I tried to hold it, but...'

Sam, the secret of his heart laid bare on the floor, and the subject of no anger, felt courage enough to wrap an arm around Frodo's shoulders. 'Easy now, Sir. Mister Gandalf's said ain't nobody could.'

'I... I know...' Frodo shifted his weight against Sam and burrowed closer, as if it were the place he was meant to be all along. 'But believing it is terribly difficult.'

'You ask him again on the morrow, and mayhaps the Lady Galadriel too, when she's here, and even Mister Bilbo, if he comes. Your Sam couldn't have gone near as far as you; why, if he'd had the Ring, he'd've only thought of keeping you safe – safe, right on back to the Shire, at that.'

'That's very kind of you, Sam.'

'Ain't kindness. It's the truth. Thinking of you was all that kept me from thinking rubbish about meself being some grand hero, when you was in the Tower. Was a struggle, but leastways you were mightier than the Ring, then – and were the whole ways after. You got it right into the forge, and taking it as far as you could was all Lord Elrond said you had to do.'

Frodo shifted, nearly squirming, struggling in his head to balance the rational views of those all around him, with what he saw in his eyes as the only truth. 'Do you really believe that, Sam? That- I'm not-'

Sam gave him a fierce squeeze, and felt now tears he could truly shed. 'Aye, with every bit of me and then some. I said afore what I meant, and right enough I meant what I said. Mayhap it makes me a ninnyhammer and a fool besides, but I love you, Frodo, and to me you're still the strongest and bravest person ever there was.'

The stress Frodo had been holding in his body seemed to disappear, and his voice became faint. 'I'm relieved.'

'Eh?' Sam, feeling he might've just blundered into a more inexcusable mess than he thought, turned red.

'That- you love me still. I was afraid... after... everything, I'd be something so small and mean like Gollum: a creature one can only pity.'

'Right enough I'm sorry you had to do all you did,' said Sam, gently taking Frodo's maimed left hand in his own, 'but then you go and make me quake where I sit when I think about how clever and strong and brave you are.'

A whisper-thin, uneasy laugh ghosted from Frodo's lips. 'Not perhaps as brave as you think. Do you know I was still frightened as Mordor came down around us?'

'I was, too. We done what was asked of us, but I still weren't looking forward to dying.'

'Nor I, but I was more scared to say aloud that- ah, why is this so difficult? that- I love you too, Samwise. … There. Not so difficult, it seems. And I thought I'd let go of my final chance.'

Sam, disbelieving his ears – which his Gaffer had always said did hear more than twice what he really remembered – leaned Frodo back and looked at him with eyes as large as a doe's. 'Begging your pardon, Sir, but-'

'Yes.' replied Frodo, speaking plainly, while a terrified, hopeful light was kindled in his eyes. 'As I thought we were nearing our end, I didn't wish to ruin what we'd had by saying something so bold and foolish at the last moment. But, as... we seem still to have a while left, and time to patch our mistakes... Yes.' he gently took his left hand from Sam's, before touching it to his own chest – above his heart – and then to Sam's. 'Frodo Baggins loves Samwise Gamgee. Whether or no.'

'Oh,' tears stung Sam's eyes, and he struggled to knuckle them away, 'I- glory and trumpets. I- you, loving your tomnoddy Sam- I don't-- how...'

'Like this.' said Frodo, and leaned forward and kissed him.

It tasted salty – like the Sea, which before Frodo had only tasted on the wind, and in his dreams – and it grew saltier still with Sam's tears as he continued to weep. The hand he'd had wrapped around Frodo with his arm, came up to tangle in Frodo's soft curls, cradling him dearly.

'Oh,' was all Sam could say as they broke apart, resting their foreheads together as Frodo's left hand rose to wipe away the fresh tears on his cheek.

'Did you like that, Sam?' asked Frodo in a whisper, his blue eyes flickering over Sam's face for an answer before it was spoken.

Sam sniffled, focusing on Frodo, and he managed to say through the turmoil of emotions stopping up his voice, 'I don't rightly know. I think we'll have to try it again.'

For the first time in what felt a whole age of the world, Frodo smiled. Smiled, so bright the whole of his face was aglow like the hundred and eleven candles had been on Bilbo's birthday cake. So bright his eyes shone like glittering blue stars.

He kissed his Sam again, and his Sam kissed him back; and it tasted salty – like fish and chips, salted with the best in the Shire.


End file.
